"You aim at a devout life, dear Philothea, because as a Christian you know that such devotion is most acceptable to God's Divine Majesty," says St. Francis de Sales in his book "Introduction to the Devout Life".
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Friday, June 7, 2013

Vortex: Our Bishops in Peril

Ezekiel
33:8-9 says:

When I
say to the wicked, “You wicked, you must die,” and you do not speak up to warn
the wicked about their ways, they shall die in their sins, but I will hold you
responsible for their blood. If, however, you warn the wicked to turn from
their ways, they do not, then they shall die in their sins, but you shall save
your life.

Whenever
I think about it in those terms, I find it easier to “speak up” when I see a
friend or loved one making a big mistake. This scripture was what spurred me on
to make a lunch date with a woman who, having just been received into the
Catholic Church, was making plans to marry outside
the Church. With Ezekiel’s words echoing in my mind, I explained to her why she
would be in mortal sin if she carried through with her plans. The same thing
was true when our granddaughter decided to marry outside the Church (the bigger
problem being that she had decided that she was no longer Catholic!). Because I
do this sort of thing, I’m not very popular amongst my extended family members,
but I’m more concerned about saving souls – including my own! – than I am about
their opinion.

I think
the human tendency is to avoid such “confrontation”. And yet, we clearly are
our brothers’ keepers, and it is not an act of charity to turn a blind eye to
the sins of others. If you saw a person about to jump off a cliff to his death,
would you not try to stop him?!

This is
what Michael Voris is talking about in the June 6 Vortex episode. Bishops, he
reminds us, are held to a greater standard than the rest of us; God has given
them authority over our souls, and so they also have greater responsibility for
their actions (or their failure to act).

Voris
says (my emphases):

Because all the responsibility
for teaching and governing rests with the bishops, they are the ones in greatest peril of their souls – no
doubt about it. They are the leaders, and because of that simple fact, they are
judged by an entirely different standard. A leader does not get judged by the
same standard as a rank and file member.

Imagine the absurdity of giving
a man all the power, but none of the responsibility for the consequences of his
decisions. For this reason, when one looks around the Church these days, is it
really an unreasonable question to ask: could
many of the bishops be on the road to Hell?

If we
really think about a bishop in hell – as Voris urges us to do – we can get a
sense of the enormity of the situation. The problem is that we aren’t reminded
enough of the reality of hell, so we lose sight of the fact that souls are
actually going there – and some are going there because of the failure of our
bishops to teach rightly and clearly and loudly on the truths of the faith.

There is a solution: prayer and penance. I
think it is important to speak up when a bishop says something clearly against
the teachings of the Church (for instance, retired Bishop Gumbleton of the Archdiocese
of Detroit speaking directly against Church teaching on the sinfulness of
homosexual behavior). But more important, we should pray for all bishops, who
bear this huge responsibility for our souls. To that end, ChurchMilitant.TV provided
a link to the American Life League’s website, where there is a “pledge” page, wherein the faithful
are encouraged to offer prayer and sacrifice for our bishops.

The
script (my emphases):

Our
Blessed Lord established His Church so that the responsibility for it would lay in the hands of the apostles and
their successors – the bishops. They have all the responsibility which is why
they have all the authority. The laity have no real authority in the Church –
whatever SOME laity may have comes to them from the good graces of their
bishop.

Because
all the responsibility for teaching and governing rests with the bishops, they
are the ones in greatest peril of their
souls – no doubt about it. They are the leaders, and because of that simple
fact, they are judged by an entirely different
standard. A leader does not get judged by the same standard as a rank and
file member.

Imagine
the absurdity of giving a man all the power, but none of the responsibility for
the consequences of his decisions. For this reason, when one looks around the
Church these days, is it really an unreasonable question to ask: could many of
the bishops be on the road to Hell?

This
question is asked in all charity for
their salvation. Think about it: in just America alone more than half of
Catholics have left the Church – more than 30 million. 30 MILLION!!

Of
those still in the Church – a t least technically still in the Church – many
ignore the

Church’s
teaching on everyday issues or morality, deny one or more dogmas of the faith like
the Real Presence or the superiority of the Catholic Faith for starters.

True…it
was not today’s bishops who set these wheels in motion; many of them were just
simple seminarians when all this madness began and they were schooled in it. But
while they didn’t set the wheels in motion, many of them have kept those wheels
rolling.

They allow dissident speakers to speak on
church property; they allow them to get awards and honors; they seek after a distorted view of ecumenism (if it can
even be called that); they marginalize or silence
orthodox priests; they allow liberal priests to remain in charge of
parishes – priests who THEY KNOW are not being faithful to the magisterial teachings
and are leading souls into confusion and indifference; they will not speak at length on the spiritual realities like sin and
hell and the devil, but pay lobbyists to promote public policy on
immigration and the environment and gun control and the canard of religious
freedom.

Rarely if ever do you
hear a bishop talk about souls going to
hell. Rarely if ever do you hear a bishop denouncing and decrying contraception. You could wait a month of Sundays
before you will hear a bishop say that the Catholic Church and ONLY the Catholic Church was established by
Jesus Christ and is the only ONE TRUE FAITH.

Too
many of them speak in half-truths, duck the hard issues, hide behind labels of
charity and prudence, ignore the reality and consequences of their cowardice
and rebellion, and sit back and watch the destruction continue to implode the
Church.

Only these men have the authority to begin
to reverse this destruction. They can purge the disloyal priests from
their charge; take charge of the education system in their diocese by firing
teachers and administrators who will not adhere to the teachings of the Church;
they can by the stroke of a pen begin to end the flood of liturgical abuses at parishes
Masses each week.

There
is so much they can do… and their
refusal to do any of it does not bode well for them when they come before
the throne of Jesus Christ. How can it? He has given them charge to tend to HIS
sheep – not their sheep… HIS sheep. And
what do they allow – the wolves free access, in the classrooms, pulpits,
seminaries, RCIA classes, etc. Their power is singular – to protect the sheep.
If they do not do this, what else would common sense dictate OTHER THAN their
own damnation?

Think
for a moment of the horrible terrible
scene of a bishop who dies, who in this life was popular in the eyes of man
for something OTHER than his holiness. He placed his own ambitions above the
will of God; he sought after the praise of men and would not disgruntle them by
announcing the hard sayings of Our Lord.

And
here he now stands, his soul bare naked in the glaring light of truth; and he
hears judgment passed on him that he is damned; and just before he descends
into the pit, he is shown all those souls who on his watch were damned because
of his lack of love for them.

It will
no longer matter that he was a cardinal or bishop who people often had a good word for. The words he will now hear – for
eternity – will be the curses of those who perished on his watch because he did nothing to save them. They
will throw in his face as they tear him to shreds the mockery of his trying to
please men with talk of immigration reform and social justice and gun control
and a host of other earth bound measures that will be burned up in the fires of
hell.

He will
be forever a slave of the demons who now doubt will have special tortures reserved
for the heirs of the Apostles. The pains of the damned are beyond description
for the LOWLIEST of the baptized; imagine what they are like for those exalted
with the fullness of the priesthood.

Would a
bishop who had the courage to declare
war on the unfaithful in his diocese – in his own chancery – even be crucified by those same men and
women? Sure, almost without a doubt. His fate at the hands of the liberal
modernist establishment might very often seem unbearable. But in suffering so, he will save his own soul and the souls of many
others. This is the rule for every Catholic… bishop and layman.

But for
the bishop, failing to do this holds a special torture in the dungeons and
prisons of hell precisely because SO MANY others are there because of HIS
actions and inactions.

The
pains of Hell are beyond compare. St. Augustine once said in fact that the
fires of hell are so intense that trying to understand them in relation to the
fires of earth would be like trying to understanding the pain of earthly fire
by looking at a painting of fire. It would only make sense that the pain a
bishop would suffer in hell would be among the worst of all human beings
because of his former noble standing.

Our
good friends over at American Life League have put together a pledge-website that we have linked
to here to encourage Catholics to pray
and fast specifically for the bishops – that they might be strong shepherds
for us, and in the process be preserved from eternal damnation.

Please click on the link and consider a
sacrifice for the men in so great a need: a bishop in Hell…tortured by demons
and ripped and torn at by the souls of those he should have tried to save…and
it never ends.

3 comments:

I have clicked on the link and signed up for this ...to pray for all Bishops who called to SHEPHERD and PASTOR and lead souls in their care to heaven . It is a terrible thought to think that many will suffer forever in the eternal flames of hell ...just because they did not serve the CALL of being a Shepherd ...they were ore concerned with being popular , laughing it up with eveil politicans and the likes...it is more than sad it is frightening ...and disgusting . THE COMPLETE TRUTH must be embraced and OBEDYED and taught by the hierarchy of our Catholic Church . Let us pray on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus ...for our Bishops, our Cardinals, our priests and religious brothers and of course Our Holy Father ....Oh and Dr. Jay between Michael Voris and the 2 guys (Tim and Wilson) from the Vericast ...I am nourished and on FIRE for Holy Mother Church .

Yeah, "ain't that the truth!", Bill! (I'm planning to post that "Houston" Vortex with some comments of my own.) I can think of a number of bishops who seem to not be aware of the danger they're in, too! In fact, I think any man who becomes a bishop must fear for his soul and be very, very vigilant. They are responsible for so much!

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My husband and I live in Baker City, Oregon. I care deeply about the liturgy, and pray ardently for the "reform of the reform". I think we've strayed far from our Catholic identity over the last 50 years, and we need to return to the traditional teachings of the Church in order to regain lost ground.